


Best Friends

by unchartedsea



Category: Nothing Much to Do
Genre: Crushes, Fluff, M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-06
Updated: 2014-11-06
Packaged: 2018-02-24 09:24:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 753
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2576402
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unchartedsea/pseuds/unchartedsea
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A back-and-forth of Pedro and Balthazar's thoughts during the Vox Pops episode. Fluff but with a lot of feelings.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Best Friends

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first fanfic I've put on AO3. Please, give me tons of feedback, criticism included! And thanks for reading and sharing my Pedrazar feels. :)

Balthazar and Pedro have both known Ursula for so long that they’re more than used to being in front of the camera. Pedro’s more at ease, of course, given his confident personality, but by now Balthazar has been trained enough to tolerate any filming he’s dragged into. Her videos have never been on the internet before, but they have to help their friend. Plus, for a soft-spoken girl, she’s surprisingly forceful when she wants to be.

* * *

"Pedro Donaldson.” He flashes a double thumbs up. That confidence attracted Balthazar’s notice after he moved to Messina. But it took a couple years for Pedro to notice the shy, scrawny kid who used to scribble song lyrics instead of talking to others.

Balthazar still likes that confidence, actually. A lot. It took a while to figure out that getting flustered by shirtless Pedro, or spending large chunks of time thinking about his pleasantly deep voice, wasn’t exactly best friend behavior. (He thinks his other friends may have picked up on it, but Pedro is a huge blockhead. It’s hard to tell if that’s a blessing or a curse.)

Balthazar realizes that he’s hiding behind the pole and sheepishly moves to sit, saying, “Oh. Balthazar.” There’s a pause as he considers Pedro’s name. He likes the way it rolls off the tongue easily. He can’t imagine anything more fitting to call him. “…Peddy? Peddy?”

“What, are you trying to nickname me?”

Balthazar glances down, embarrassed. A little because Pedro’s smirk always knocks his heartbeat out of balance and he doesn’t want to blush, but also because Peddy is a godawful nickname. “Maybe.”

Pedro chuckles. “Pedro is my nickname!”

Balthazar turns to stare at him, his tone bordering on outrage. “You—what?”

Ursula bursts out in giggles.

“You knew that! I told you, right? It’s…actually, don’t put this on footage. Gotta keep the mystery alive.”

Ursula nods. “Yeah, I won’t.”

“Oh. Right, you told me. Peter. But that’s not mysterious…”

Pedro puts a finger to his lips. “It’s top secret and you can’t tell anyone. Anyway, I know your real name too. Staaaaan—“

“Stop, stop.” Balthazar can’t help but laugh. “I call a truce.”

“Good. Okay.” Pedro turns back to Ursula. “Next question!”

* * *

Pedro knows how modest his best friend is, so Balthazar’s response to the clothes question is typical. “I bought it at like Topshop, I dunno.”

Pedro grins. “Topshop. Trendy.” He’s always admired how well Balthy dresses. Pedro is more of a T-shirt and jeans guy, perhaps with a flannel or a hoodie, but his best friend goes for sweaters and blazers and stylish button-downs. Lately Pedro’s been buying a few of those, too, but he doesn’t think he pulls it off as well as Balthy and his slim figure. Definitely not the sweaters.

Balthy’s face goes pink. “Yeah, well. I try. Sometimes.” Occasionally when his best friend blushes, Pedro gets an unsettled sensation in the pit of his stomach, but he’s been ignoring the feeling for a couple months now. It’s been getting stronger, though, and he’s at a loss, because this doesn’t make any sense. It’s just Balthy, after all.

* * *

Balthazar obviously knows his favorite quote by heart. It’s on a poster in his room and doodled in his song notebooks. But he has to summon all of his courage to look into Pedro’s eyes and say, “Love, it will not betray you, dismay or enslave you, it will set you free.” As usual, Pedro doesn’t pick up on the hint. Not a surprise. Still, Balthazar’s heart pounds in his chest afterwards.

That song is dangerous. Balthazar’s belief in love might be what’s kept his crush going for so long. But he can’t keep lying to himself with all these hopes, or the thoughts about Pedro that float into his head when he closes his eyes.

* * *

Pedro counts off on his fingers as Balthy lists instruments. “So I play guitar, drums, piano, obviously. I play the ukulele. A bit of French horn. Dabble in a bit of sax. Bit of mandolin, bit of violin, bit of viola every so often if I’m feeling it.”

Pedro grins. “That almost rhymes.”

But Balthazar’s mind has drifted. The list of instruments is actually considerably longer than Pedro had realized. “Cello…castanet, pots and pans… If you give me something, I-I’ll give it some rhythm.” On Balthy, the grin is practically a smirk; Pedro likes seeing these moments of confidence in his friend. His stomach does the funny thing again.

It really needs to stop doing that.


End file.
